First PC Build - Warning, thread will have blunders.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 19:39

Hi all, I hope you are well!

Before you read anything below, please be aware that I still consider myself a complete novice in the field of technology, electronics and DIY. (What's the worst that can happen)

In the summer of 2017, I posted my first thread on this forum looking for assistance in upgrading my PC. I was met by, what I considered, a load of jibberish. But my knight in shining armour, who goes by the name of 'Plec' looked after me and tutored me in to installing a new graphics card and heat sink and OCing my processor. Thing which I never thought would happen. It was a miracle.

My new found "skills" have inspired me to try and build a PC. Now, this won't be a ground up build, more of a 'Re-home the residents and introduce some new friends'.

Essentially, i'm looking to keep some of my components and stick them in a new case and find fill in the blanks. (Looking to build in a couple of months, so i'm getting my nose in early)
I'm looking for any help guiding me to the correct components to buy, to ensure i'm not wasting my money (of which I'm looking to spend £750-800).
Any assistance would be much appreciated and I'd be very grateful.

Current Build:

GPU: GeForce GTX Gigabyte 6GB Windforce 1060
CPU: i5-2500k 3.30ghz (OC 4.2 I think)
Memory: 8gb Ram DDR3
Power Supply: 600W Quiet 80 Plus QUAD Rail PSU
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LX
2x HDD, 500gb and 2TB.

What I'm thinking is a new CPU, Motherboard, an SSD (finally) and DDR4 Ram. If that will all come within my budget. I also think I will probably need a new power supply.

Also also, possibly looking at a new cpu cooler, would this all in one be suitable?
CoolerMaster Master Liquid 120mm AIO CPU Water Cooler Intel/AMD

My very basic knowledge only covers Intel products and I have no idea about AMD etc. so if anyone could explain how either would benefit me that'd be great.

Case
This is the case I currently have: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/in-win-mana-136-midi-tower-case-black-ca-002-iw.html
(Apologies, I can't do the 'my checkout' thing as it's no longer being sold)

I've had this case for around 7 years and it's showing it's age inside. I'm looking for something slightly larger and more suitable for my rooms colour scheme. Which is Lime Green.

This case: https://www.**********/products/the...with-side-window-usb-30-and-3x140mm-riing?v=c
Is what I have in mind, it's slightly more expensive than i'd hoped for but it looks like there's lots of room for upgrades.

I think i've included all that's needed in this post in order for others to understand, but I've had dinner in the middle of it so some may not legible.

Thanks!
Nathan

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 19:50

Hi

With a £750 - £800 budget you should easily be able to go with an i7 8700K, Z370 board and 16GB DDR4. You will also need a decent cooler as this cpu runs hot.

What case did you mean to link ? I am guessing the forum software starred out the address if it was a competitor store. Maybe find the case on here or link to the manufacturers page instead.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 19:56

Ah yes it was from ***ELSEWHERE***. This was the case: http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=c_00002696

Thank you for the suggestions, I had looked at the 8700k and a lot of the comments were that it was hot. Coolers are something I really know nothing about, so I'd definitely have to do more research into that!

No Competitor mentions please
- Armageus

orbitalwalsh · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:06

Nice spread of cases

b]My basket at Overclockers UK:[/b]

1 x Kolink Stronghold Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black Tempered Glass Side Window= £35.99
1 x Phanteks Eclipse P300 Glass Midi Tower Case - Black= £54.95
1 x In-Win 101 Midi-Tower Case - Black Window= £66.95
1 x In-Win 303 Midi Tower Case - Black= £79.99
2 x be quiet! Pure Base 600 Midi Tower Case - Black Window= £94.99

Total: £461.40 (includes shipping: £33.54)

Cool it down , only fits in last two mind

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Alphacool Eisbaer LT360 CPU AIO Water Cooling Unit - 240mm (11446)= £99.95

Total: £109.85 (includes shipping: £9.90)

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:16

Thank you for the suggestions! Whilst those cases look great, I really have my heart set on the green one i've linked! (Not to sound rude). The cooler looks good though! Would that fit in the case i've linked?

I'm a bit confused with water cooling to be honest, how does it all work? Does it just get attached to the case and then you apply the liquid and it goes about it's business or is it more difficult than that?

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:16

Nathan Long said:
This was the case: http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=c_00002696

Thank you for the suggestions, I had looked at the 8700k and a lot of the comments were that it was hot. Coolers are something I really know nothing about, so I'd definitely have to do more research into that!

Holy Moly. You need Sunglasses on to look at that one

The specs say it can take a 360mm AIO cooler if you fancy a liquid cooled cooler (Alphacool Eisbaer 360 or BeQuiet Silent Loop 360 etc). Or other option is a big chunky air cooler such as a Cryorig R1 or BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 etc.

So just as an example:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £308.99
1 x Alphacool Eisbaer LT360 CPU AIO Water Cooling Unit - 240mm (11446)= £99.95
1 x Asus Prime Z370-A Intel Z370 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £155.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G30= £149.99

Total: £714.92 (includes shipping: £0.00)

Of course if you want to shop around then you might find different Ram that suits better such as Corsair LPX or maybe you want RGB etc.

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:19

Nathan Long said:
Thank you for the suggestions! Whilst those cases look great, I really have my heart set on the green one i've linked! (Not to sound rude). The cooler looks good though! Would that fit in the case i've linked?

I'm a bit confused with water cooling to be honest, how does it all work? Does it just get attached to the case and then you apply the liquid and it goes about it's business or is it more difficult than that?

The majority of liquid coolers are sealed units so no maintenance required. The Alphacool is expandable though, so it is possible to cool your gpu as well if you wanted to.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:22

lee32uk said:
Holy Moly. You need Sunglasses on to look at that one

Yeah.. apologies! The wall behind it is that colour so I can't miss the opportunity!!

lee32uk said:
The majority of liquid coolers are sealed units. The Alphacool is expandable though, so it is possible to cool your gpu as well if you wanted to.

Blimey that sounds handy! Are they simple enough to set up? I'm fairly (completely) heavy handed, so as long as an oaf can do it then we're all good!

So are you thinking I don't need a new PSU? Even though it's verging on 7 years old? It's not shown any signs of cutting out so far.

orbitalwalsh · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:36

If the Bequiet unit wasmwa made by FSP- then yes would change it. Used a lower quality OEM before the switch to FSP

b]My basket at Overclockers UK:[/b]

1 x Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM= £299.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24= £139.99
1 x Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming Intel Z370 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £158.99
1 x Alphacool Eisbaer LT360 CPU AIO Water Cooling Unit - 240mm (11446)= £99.95
1 x Bitfenix Formula Series 450W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £59.99

Total: £770.01 (includes shipping: £11.10)

By the time you come around to buying , Ultra 1.0 would have been replaced with the superior 2.0 - which is technically already out in the UK.
Would be all under Gigabyte UK RMA then

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ther...er-tempered-glass-window-black-ca-192-tt.html

???

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:37

Nathan Long said:
Yeah.. apologies! The wall behind it is that colour so I can't miss the opportunity!!

Blimey that sounds handy! Are they simple enough to set up? I'm fairly (completely) heavy handed, so as long as an oaf can do it then we're all good!

So are you thinking I don't need a new PSU? Even though it's verging on 7 years old? It's not shown any signs of cutting out so far.

I have always used air coolers myself but fitting a water cooler shouldn't be any more difficult. You attach the fans to the radiator and that screws into the roof or front of the case depending on where you want it. Then you just attach the other end to the cpu not forgetting the thermal paste of course if it isn't pre-applied. Then plug in any cables i.e fan and pump etc into board headers.

If you want to keep it simpler then a big air cooler such as a Cryorig R1 Universal will do the trick or even an Alpenfohn Brocken 3 if you want a good budget option.

Is your current psu a BeQuiet ? If it just says quiet psu then maybe look at getting the Bitfenix suggested above. You don't want a no brand unit taking out your new hardware.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:46

lee32uk said:
If you want to keep it simpler then a big air cooler such as a Cryorig R1 Universal

Hmm maybe air cooling is the better option for now. Seems more budget efficient also!

orbitalwalsh said:
If the Bequiet unit wasmwa made by FSP- then yes would change it. Used a lower quality OEM before the switch to FSP

I'm sorry I don't quite understand any of this! Is this something regulations based?

The cooler I recently bought was this:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x be quiet! Pure Rock CPU Cooler - 120mm= £31.99

Total: £38.01 (includes shipping: £6.02)

I guess it no longer will cut the mustard! The cryorig one looks nice definitely!

orbitalwalsh said:
By the time you come around to buying , Ultra 1.0 would have been replaced with the superior 2.0

What is this in reference to? Apologies again, you're dealing with a real novice! You chose the wrong post to look at

EDIT: I believe it's a BeQuiet yes, I'm not at home currently so can't check, but whatever is in my first post for PSU was what I bought when I initially bought the PC 7 years ago! I copied that directly from the order (Which was from ************)

EsaT · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:52

Nathan Long said:
Power Supply: 600W Quiet 80 Plus QUAD Rail PSU

I also think I will probably need a new power supply.

Also also, possibly looking at a new cpu cooler, would this all in one be suitable?
CoolerMaster Master Liquid 120mm AIO CPU Water Cooler Intel/AMD

I guess you meant Be Quiet?
Anyway if it's just plain 80+ and not even Bronze, it's totally stone aged and has no business even in vicinity of modern PC and should be re-located to more suitable place like museum or WEEE.
Also 80+ Bronze is at best medieval.
And with aged and worn cheap components it could be actual risk to new PC without first having thoroughly tested it.
(with stuff costing more than bagfull of PSUs)

Seasonic Focus Plus is where quality/performance meets the price:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/search?sSearch=seasonic+focus+plus+gold
It has fully modular cabling so wouldn't have unneeded cables to show from window of that case.
Which curiously considering brand of Thermaltake, has certain style in it.

Modern CPUs really don't have much of sensible overclocking room.
You'll fast end up just increasing power consumption/heat output for totally insignificant gains.
So unless feeling that your room is too cold at summer wouldn't put real value into overclocking.
Unfortunately we don't anymore live in Core 2 era, when you turned volts down little, while cranking clocks up 30%.

And while that "2nd gen Core" Sandy Bridge still had room, after that Intel has done that overclocking to practical max in factory.

Stock CPUs and mild sensible overclocks are also easily handled by heatpipe coolers.
Which are cheaper than waterpipe coolers, as you're apparently doing this PC hobby somewhat on budget.

Speaking about hobbying on budget AMD is now for the first time in very long time again very viable choise.
And unlike Intel who constantly swaps CPU sockets for really no upgrade CPU, AMD is going to use current socket up to 2020...
Which would give easy upgrade chance in couple years without big costly changes.

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:52

Nathan Long said:
Hmm maybe air cooling is the better option for now. Seems more budget efficient also!

I'm sorry I don't quite understand any of this! Is this something regulations based?

The cooler I recently bought was this:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x be quiet! Pure Rock CPU Cooler - 120mm= £31.99

Total: £38.01 (includes shipping: £6.02)

I guess it no longer will cut the mustard! The cryorig one looks nice definitely!

What is this in reference to? Apologies again, you're dealing with a real novice! You chose the wrong post to look at

EDIT: I believe it's a BeQuiet yes, I'm not at home currently so can't check, but whatever is in my first post for PSU was what I bought when I initially bought the PC 7 years ago! I copied that directly from the order (Which was from ************)

Try the BeQuiet Pure Rock. You probably won't be able to overclock much, but it will do for the time being. No point buying another cooler if you have a decent budget one. Just keep your eye on temps etc.

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 20:57

The Gigabyte Ultra is being replaced by the Ultra Gaming 2.0 is what Orbital was referring to. The Ultra had a few VRM issues when doing things like Video rendering so it got pretty hot around the cpu area (VRM's overheating).

If you want to watch the video regarding the problem.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:04

lee32uk said:
Try the BeQuiet Pure Rock. You probably won't be able to overclock much

I'll be honest, I'm not planning on OCing straight away, so that can be something for the future if needs be.

EsaT said:
Speaking about hobbying on budget AMD is now for the first time in very long time again very viable choise.

I had thought about that for a moment, but s little as I know about Intel, I know even less about AMD, i feel like that would be too much of a curve as the compatibility of them confuses me!

Can I just summarise quickly? Before this all builds up to a massive amount of confusion for me haha
New CPU - 8700k seems the common choice
New Motherboard - Z370 again seems like a common choice.
Should be able to stick with current cpu cooler, if not OCing, look to buy new one if OCing
Need new PSU
New RAM as ones mentioned above.

I'll confirm my PSU specs tomorrow when i'm home, if you could categorically say I need a new one from what I say, that would be great

EDIT: In reference to 'Ultra' motherboard: SO this will be something i'll be able to buy in a couple of months correct? Will there be a significant price difference?

orbitalwalsh · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:19

If you can't fancy overclocking , and coffeelake Non K chips finally coming with higher clock rates then previous gens, just grab a 8700 and B360 board

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G24= £139.99
1 x Bitfenix Formula Series 450W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £59.99
1 x Intel Core i7-8700 3.2GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM= £248.99
1 x be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler= £54.95

Total: £515.02 (includes shipping: £11.10)

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte B360 Aorus Gaming 3 WIFI Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £95.99
1 x Gigabyte B360 HD3 Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £76.99
1 x Asus ROG Strix B360-F Gaming Intel B360 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £119.99
1 x Asrock H370 Pro4 Intel H370 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £89.99

Total: £394.66 (includes shipping: £11.70)

Unfortunately some B and H chipset boards cost more then the Z370... Due to the whole thing being a rush job :/

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:20

Nathan Long said:
I'll be honest, I'm not planning on OCing straight away, so that can be something for the future if needs be.

I had thought about that for a moment, but s little as I know about Intel, I know even less about AMD, i feel like that would be too much of a curve as the compatibility of them confuses me!

Can I just summarise quickly? Before this all builds up to a massive amount of confusion for me haha
New CPU - 8700k seems the common choice
New Motherboard - Z370 again seems like a common choice.
Should be able to stick with current cpu cooler, if not OCing, look to buy new one if OCing
Need new PSU
New RAM as ones mentioned above.

I'll confirm my PSU specs tomorrow when i'm home, if you could categorically say I need a new one from what I say, that would be great

EDIT: In reference to 'Ultra' motherboard: SO this will be something i'll be able to buy in a couple of months correct? Will there be a significant price difference?

At stock settings the BeQuiet cooler should cope. It is a pretty decent cooler.

The best cpu at the moment for gaming is the i7 8700K. The Ryzen R5 1600 or R7 1700 offer better value for money but with usually slightly less fps especially at 1080p. They are good cpu's though if you prefer a value option. They also don't run anywhere near as hot as the 8700K so even the stock AMD cooler is fine to use.

You need a Z370 board if going with the 8700K. There are cheaper chipsets on pre-order but you usually can't overclock on them.

For AMD Ryzen you either go with a more budget B350 chipset board or a higher end X370 one. The beauty is you can overclock on both chipsets. You can pickup a good B350 board such as the Asus B350-F Strix for £100 or so, or a Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 for around £80.

If your current psu is 7 years old it might be worth changing anyway. You can always keep it as a spare.

The revised Ultra board should be around the same price I would imagine.

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:27

orbitalwalsh said:
If you can't fancy overclocking , and coffeelake Non K chips finally coming with higher clock rates then previous gens, just grab a 8700 and B360 board

It's not that I won't, but it's that i'll be getting over my shock of doing manual labour for a couple of months so it'll just come a bit later! THink I'll stick with the 8700k for longevity sake as well!

orbitalwalsh said:
Bitfenix Formula Series 450W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £59.99

450W! Was I just overcompensating on my 600W? Or have things become more energy efficient in those years?

You're saying I should get a new CPU cooler, do you think the one i bought last year won't be up to it?

lee32uk · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:29

So an AMD option would be something like this:

Leaves you with more money to spend on other areas.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 1600 3.60GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £139.99
1 x Asus ROG Strix B350-F Gaming AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £106.99
1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TLGD= £155.99

Total: £413.47 (includes shipping: £10.50)

NathanL · 6 Apr 2018 at 21:37

lee32uk said:
So an AMD option would be something like this:

Leaves you with more money to spend on other areas.

Ah I see! AMD processor names confuse me as much as Mercedes cars...

Maybe AMD would be a sensible idea then. How much are the X370s? Sorry I would search myself but I'm really struggling with my terrible i3 HP laptop currently..

So, as far as I'd notice, there won't be a particular difference between Intel and Amd?